Currently, there are many commercially available transplanting devices on the market. Available transplanters range in size from small, manually-operated transplanters to large transplanters carried by tractors of trucks for use in connection with moving trees, large bushes, and other plants requiring a mass of earth of such size that vehicular transportation thereof is necessry.
In transplanting larger plants, such as trees, it is important to excavate at least a portion of the roots together with the earth in which the roots are located. Plants that are transplanted with the least damage to their rootlets and roothairs have the best chance of surviving in a new location, all other things being equal. A plant is desirably moved along with a "rootball," i.e., with at least a portion of its roots still embedded in the earth in which the plant was growing. This allows the roots and the rootball to continue to nourish the plant after it is transplanted until new root growth can take place.
Any relative movement between the earth and the roots in the rootball, however, tends to break off or damage the rootlets or tiny root hairs. Therefore, it is important for a transplanting device to sever a rootball from the ground with a minimum of disturbance to the earth and roots therein.
Many of the existing transplanters used to excavate and transport larger plants employ hydraulic systems which are mounted on or form a part of the transporting vehicle. Equiping a truck or tractor with a permanent hydraulic system designed specifically for tree transplanting significantly limits the use of the vehicle.
A number of the available transplanters used to move larger plants include ground piercing blades that are driven into the ground around the plant to ensure that the rootball is completely severed from the ground. In some cases, a separate hydraulic system is used to provide the force to drive the blades into and out of the ground.
The present invention provides a manually-operated towable transplanter having a self-contained hydraulic system which is capable of removing and transplanting plants such as small trees and bushes together with the proper size rootball.